The Ebony Tower
by John Fowles
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 157)
Read in August, 2007
"The Ebony Tower" returns to the theme of mentorship, telling another version a meeting with a roll model. In this case, it's a meeting of artists. David Williams, a frustrated artist detours from his holiday with his wife to interview the cantankerous Henry Breasley who lives in seclusion with two beautiful former art students: Diana (the Mouse) and Anne (the Freak). David spends the weekend being lectured on morality, sexuality and modern art. He is tempted to join this hedonistic li...more
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Read in November, 2007
I was actually quite disappointed in how every one of these stories ended. I found them to be initially interesting, but they all petered out at the ends...so much so that I couldn't get myself to finish reading the last one. It just seemed like a waste of my time to take the time to read it when it was a) not interesting to begin with, and b) probably just going end like every one of the other stories. The Magus is one of my all-time favorites, but The Ebony Tower in no way lives up to Fowle...more
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The only book in which I've cheered the burning of a manuscript. I read it years ago, and I still remember hating its smugness and assumption of shared values (civilisation, high culture, nice accents, blah blah, , values that Fowles doesn't even begin to possess (except maybe the accent). There was a fabulous hatchet job on his Diaries by Ian Sansom in the London Review of Books. Read it if you can...
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some stories were irritating, but others worth a read- particularly the last few- start at the end and only read the title story if you're stuck at a greyhound station and in an unusually indulgent mood
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Read in August, 2007
Nice piece but I found the language too unnecessarily complex. Yet the plot is pretty much down-to-earth.
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Read in November, 2007
Not as good as his novels, but all the stories are good, and a couple of them shine.
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